NEWS

2022.11.9

Safie and AWL Announce a Capital and Business Alliance for Joint Development of Edge AI Analysis Platform for All Industries

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Safie Inc. (Head Office: Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Representative Director & CEO: Ryuhei Sadoshima; hereinafter “Safie”), the No.1 cloud video recording service provider (*1), and AWL, Inc. (Head Office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President, Representative Director and CEO: Muneharu Kitade, hereinafter “AWL” ), Hokkaido University-certified startup and the market leader in edge AI camera solutions announced capital and business alliance to jointly develop and provide edge AI analytics platforms to solve issues in the retail and other industries through video analysis and edge AI.
Safie and AWL will start from the joint development to advance and generalize Safie One, Safie’s edge AI camera, which was released on September 28.

■Background and Purpose of the Alliance

While the use of AI has been attracting attention in recent years, the implementation of AI in the real world has been slow to take off.
One of the reasons is the need of technology for efficient and high-speed processing with limited computer resources to introduce AI into diverse business settings and operate it in real time. In addition, the underlying challenges of AI (machine learning) models are that they may misidentify the target depending on the installed environment. And may change in the external environment over time, may cause a decline in accuracy.

In order to address these issues, AWL, a leading edge AI company, will leverage its extensive knowledge and experience to provide long-term stable accuracy of high-quality AI models using fine-tuning technology that fine-tune to the environment and the latest MLOps that automatically update AI models.

Safie and AWL aim to promote implementation of “video and AI analysis” and make it more accessible and affordable by combining Safie’s vast video platform data, infrastructure, device management, video management and other system infrastructure, and business assets such as customer base, commercial distribution, equipment procurement, installation, and maintenance, and AWL’s business assets such as edge AI applications, fine-tuning technology to apply AI in diverse sites, MLOps to prevent AI accuracy degradation, and global organizational development capabilities.

■Future Plan

By utilizing AWL’s edge AI technology and operational capabilities for Safie’s edge AI camera “Safie One”, AI will be individually optimized for each camera installation environment, making it possible to achieve higher levels of sophistication and generalization. Starting with the retail industry, where the installation environment often differs depending on the products, customers, and other factors at each store, Safie and AWL will provide affordable and highly functional edge AI applications,

In addition to retail industry, Safie and AWL will contribute to “On-site DX” by accelerating the resolution of issues in all “onsite” such as restaurants / services, construction, and infrastructure / public facilities, also by making operations more efficient, labor-saving, and creating added value.

Safie and AWL aim to create many AI solutions that can be used in actual sites, which has been difficult in the past, and develop platforms for applications that utilize cloud-recorded data.
Safie and AWL intend to work together to push forward with a view to global expansion at an early date, as well as domestically.

[Comment by Ryuhei Sadoshima, Representative Director & CEO of Safie Inc.]

We are looking forward to seeing AWL’s edge AI technology cultivated by its global team and the Safie video platform combine their strengths to promote the implementation of AI in real life.
In order to provide our clients with satisfactory AI services as a platform provider, we are confident that AWL’s fine-tuning technology, which can individually optimize AI accuracy that varies depending on the camera installation environment, will bring great value to Safie’s video platform.
We are beginning to hear the challenges of various industries from our clients. By combining AWL’s AI technology we are sure that we can thoroughly tackle to solve these challenges.
Safie will continue to provide and improve our edge AI camera video data analytics and AI development services for our wide range of clients.

[Comments from Muneharu Kitade, President, Representative Director and CEO of AWL Inc.]

Since its inception in 2016, AWL has been engaging actively to improve operational efficiency and productivity with high-quality and affordable edge AI camera solutions, particularly in retail settings. Operating the edge AI camera system, may require labor and time to optimize each camera for its environment, generalizing the system may become a challenge for large-scale deployment.
AWL focused on these issue at an early stage and has established technologies such as “AWL Trainer,” a fine-tuning technology to optimize AI models individually, and “AWL Engine,” the latest ML Ops technology to prevent AI accuracy degradation to maintain the latest state of AI, along with promoting global intellectual property activities. We are confident that by combining the business assets of the No. 1 cloud video platform in Japan of Safie and with AWL’s cutting-edge technology, we are able to develop the solution that is unrivaled anywhere in the world, and contribute to a safe, secure, and prosperous future that will benefit society in many more situations.

(*1) Number of camera registrations by engine (47.5%), Source: “Study of the Network Camera Cloud-based Video Recording Service Market” by Techno Systems Research Co., Ltd.

[About Safie Inc.]

Safie is the No. 1 cloud recording service that allows users to check images anytime, anywhere simply by connecting a camera to the Internet.
With the vision of “Create a better future with intelligent vision”, we aim to create a future where video can be used to help people make decisions, and to create a video platform that can be easily used by everyone from companies to individuals.
We are taking the lead in promoting DX in every “on-site”, from retail, civil engineering and to construction, manufacturing, and health care, based on the business concept of “Promote DX in every ‘on-site’ of all industries with video data”.

[About AWL, Inc.]

Established in 2016. A Hokkaido University certified venture that has accumulated cutting-edge AI and Deep Learning-based video analytics with a wealth of experience in IoT utilization and implementation. A global team consisting members from more than 20 countries. Awarded “EY Innovative Startup 2021” by Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC. Our signature product “AWL Lite” provides accurate real-time attention analysis and audience measurement for digital signage displays to maximize the value of advertisement at an affordable price.
The well-known “AWLBOX” system, a High-Performance AI Edge camera solution, is the pioneer in transforming existing store cameras into image-based intelligent solutions with minimal investment.